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“You can put my name on your paper,” he said.
She stopped breathing. “What?”
“Stay married to me for three months, and you can add Lucas Saraci, M.D., to your paper. I’ve contributed to research on the epigenetics of head and neck cancer and disease progression published in the New England Journal of Medicine. It won’t be an issue for me to contribute to your research.”
The New England Journal of Medicine was one of, if not the most prestigious medical journal in the world, but her husband was being modest. He’d published more than one paper in the NEJM. There were birth control methods with higher failure rates than the probability of being published in the NEJM.
“Saraci, that’s funding, credibility, networking…” Her heart beat so hard, she eased away from him, needing more space for each muscle contraction. “This could help us translate our findings into real-world applications. Something as simple as adding a psychosocial questionnaire to intake forms at doctor’s offices would make a world of difference in the continuity of care.”
He smiled
They both knew he had her.
“So, Mrs. Saraci,” he began, “that sounds like a yes to me.”
ChapterNine
How he managed to keep his composure and any semblance of decency with Raina sitting half-naked on top of him, wearing fishnets, Lucas didn’t know.
“Three months?” she asked.
In a month, she would crave him.
In three months, she could love him.
She shifted, which forced his hands higher, off her hips and onto her back. When his fingertips met her skin, her eyelids twitched, and he helplessly traced the curve of her spine.
Raina didn’t know the power she wielded over him. It was laughable that she was actually “contemplating” his offer when the woman was sitting half-naked on his lap and smelled like figs covered in honey and whipped cream. All she had to do was ask, and he would do the research for her.
That helplessness was another thing he despised about this beautiful woman. The desire todofor her—anything, everything, all the things. The way she brought out a version of him he’d promised Khalid, Dr. A…too many people…he would never lose.
His backstory, the one he created to have equal footing in the circles he now ran in, was that his family emigrated from Bulgaria to Turkey in the mid-fifties when his mother was a child. Then, whenhewas a child, they immigrated to the United States, and as far as anyone was concerned, he came from a family of successful individuals. Hewasthe quintessential “American Dream” success story.
To everyone else, he fit in.
However, if Raina accepted him for everything he was, from the more pristine parts to the ones that would forever harbor chips and scars, he would do everything in his power to make her the happiest woman walking the earth.
“Did you even look up the annulment requirements?” he asked.
“Not yet. I was too busy preparing for,” she yawned into the back of her hand, “Fashion Week. Have you?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
Because hewantedto stay married to her. Hewantedher to be his wife. He just didn’t know how to tell her that.
“Work,” he said.
“Honestly?” She graced him with a tired smile and fussed with his hair. “I’m still in a state of shock that we did it. I mean, how cliché is that? Getting drunk in Vegas and waking up married.”
It was cliché.
At least, it would have been.
Had he been drunk at the time.
Admittedly, in the beginning, he’d been a little more than tipsy, but by the time they made it to the jeweler’s, his mind was clearer than the sky on a perfect day in the Seychelles.
